


don't wanna live without teeth, don't wanna die without bite

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Black Character(s), Black Male Character, Drug Use, Gen, Illegal Activities, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Male Character of Color, Marijuana, Nice Montparnasse, POV Female Character, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, References to Illness, Trans Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 13:28:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2111619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Éponine is a mentally ill trans girl with so many bad habits that she couldn't count them on her fingers, with bad parents in a bad town just trying to get by. Montparnasse is a recovering alcoholic who paints his nails black and wears the asexual flag on his fake leather jacket.</p><p>Or: Éponine and Montparnasse meet at a party and go on a roadtrip. That ends in a Walmart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't wanna live without teeth, don't wanna die without bite

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the book nevada by imogen binnie. a good read. title taken from the song "FUCKMYLIFE666" by against me!
> 
> eponine has bipolar and schizaffective disorder. montparnasse can be either cis or trans and eponine can or can not be white, whatever you imagine

“Five months, three days sober,” he said, propped up against the balcony rail like something out of a magazine. “And, I do not feel like breaking that record, even for a pretty girl like you.”

She looked him up and down, and her eyes were hazy and bloodshot, pupils dilated. There wasn't much left to steal from her parent's stash, but Éponine would take what she could. She put the joint back to her lips and took a long drag, the smell and taste of weed permanently glued to the roof of her mouth. Gavroche said her breathe always smelled like “Chinese food and stink bugs,” but it would have to be some pretty bad Chinese food. But all the food they ate was bad, anyway.

He didn't turn away from the puff of smoke, too busy looking out across the front yard filled with loud teenagers, likely writing tacky poetry in his head. Éponine had already sized him up as one of those modern greaser type of dudes who loitered outside gas stations. Either a gas station or a liquor store, which was basically all this drunk town had to offer. 

He took a comb out of his pocket and brushed it through his immaculate hair. It was an automated gesture that Éponine would have yawned at, only if her mouth wasn't currently occupied with her last joint.

“I don't drink,” he interrupted her train of thought, as if he could hear her so much as imagining him by a liquor store. “That's one of the few things I won't do.” He winked, and then glanced back out into the night clouded with city lights and pollution blocking out the stars. 

He glanced at the red cup in her hand, just for a second, but she knew what he was hinting at. With a sigh, Éponine stepped closer to him out on the balcony, and then she leaned forward and tossed the cheap booze into a bush below, throwing the cup back into the room behind her. Rich kids who could afford these kind of parties could afford to clean up after the party goers.

“Didn't catch your name,” she said.

“Montparnasse.” She didn't believe him. It sounded too fancy, and he had an aura of fakeness about him, from his clean jacket cuffs that he kept rolling up to his unscuffed shoes that looked like he had just walked out of a store with them on his feet, that made her distrust him.

But she was high, and bored, and didn't have a ride home, and rarely trusted people anyway, so she shuffled closer to him and put her elbows on the balcony. He was a little taller than her, and, when he wrapped his arms around her, he was a little warmer than her, too. She smelled shaving cream, hair gel, mints, cigarette smoke. And, now, he smelled like her stolen weed, too.

In the back of her head, she vaguely wondered why he smoked instead of drank, because didn't smoking turn your teeth yellow and other stuff that looked to be on the top of the his “worst fears” list? And alcohol just ruined your liver and other crap. Then she felt a little ashamed, considering he had said he was a recovering alcoholic. Éponine respected that.

She noticed, with a snort, his nails were painted black. Some were in the early stages of starting to chip, but his nails looked perfectly manicured. It made him seem even less real. Éponine didn't know many people who cared about keeping up their appearance.

Montparnasse was saying something about his car that she couldn't pay attention to. The heavy smell of his cologne in her nose, the rub of his facial hair against her cheek, and the feel of the fake leather of his jacket against her bare shoulders was overwhelming, and she felt her head swim. Which could probably be blamed on the combination of weed and alcohol, too.

Really, she had been dizzy all day. She caught her mom stealing the pills she had for next week and couldn't be bothered to say that she needed those to go to school, but, whatever, she was going to ditch anyway. In return, she just took their weed and enough money for a packet of gum and a bus ride.

Some asshole had swiped the rest of the change she needed to get home while she was wandering through the backyard, and now here she was, stoned and broke on a balcony, cuddling a guy so fake he kept combing hair he had already styled with ten years worth of hair products. 

“Wanna see it?” he asked, and Éponine had no idea what he was talking about but she nodded. She walked along with him out of the party to the parking lot on the front lawn, which wasn't really a parking lot but just a collection of cars who drove up and stopped on the (no longer) flawlessly mowed grass. 

The final thing she remembered of that night was settling into a car that reeked just as much of cigarette smoke and cologne as the guy at the wheel.

Éponine woke up in the morning hoping the man next to her and she had used condoms. Once, she remembers, she had been disgusted with herself, for many things, but sleeping with strangers wasn't something she bothered to be ashamed of anymore. She should probably try to be sober more during sex, though. The last one night stand she had ended in a three day long psychotic episode, drifting to and from reality, triggered by her partner's reaction to her being trans. She was half-hard when he shoved his hands down her pants and then threatened to kill her.

She couldn't bother remembering his name. She yawned and looked around, a hangover from whatever party she had attended and abandoned last night revving up and ready to bulldoze her over.

She was in the back of a pretty nice-looking truck sharing a blanket with a pretty nice-looking guy. They were parked next to an stretch of yellow grass and dirt opposite a road winding into nowhere. She had no idea where she was; they were pulled on the side of the road somewhere she didn't recognize, which meant they were likely out of town.

The afternoon sun flared overhead as a car streaked by, and a faux leather jacket fluttered from where it was thrown over the driver seat's side mirror. The man besides her blinked awake.

“Hey,” she croaked. Her voice sounded like shit, and she definitely had bad morning breath. Or, not really morning, considering the watch on his wrist that said it was past twelve.

“Good morning,” he said, stretching and smiling. 

“How come you're so cheerful?” she mumbled, shielding her eyes from the sun. The heat stung.

“No alcohol, no hangover,” he laughed. He had a Hallmark-movie type of laugh.

Her eyes burned all the way back to her brain. She felt like a phone at one percent battery, and with a couple viruses too. “The hell did we even do last night?” she asked.

“Nothing much. Drove around, listened to some tunes, then found a place away from the city where we could actually see the stars. Pretty nice until you threw up in the cab.” At her grimace, he continued, “You cleaned it up, though. Thanks for that. I would have helped you if you had let me.”

It sounded plausible enough, but - “What about the sex?”

He looked at her quizzically. “We didn't have any.”

She laughed in disbelief. “Right, right. Don't worry, I would totally fuck you even when not drunk.”

“Well,” he said, “That wouldn't happen if you were drunk or not anyway, considering I'm asexual.”

A semi-truck drove by with the windows down, country blasting from the radio, and disappeared down the road with a drawn-out honk. Eponine squinted at it and then rolled her shoulders in a gesture meant to be casual and suggest acceptance, but instead caused her to gasp.

“Ow!” she cried, poking her bright red skin where her tank top didn't cover. “Crap.”

“Oh.” He looked apologetic. “I didn't think to put on sunscreen before we crashed. Sorry about that.”

Eponine winced as she shuffled into the shade of the truck's cab, gingerly leaning against the back window. She got a closer look at the car's owner; he was wearing a plain white t-shirt, arms exposed. “Did you get burned?”

“No. Melanin is an excellent sunscreen.” He rolled up the blanket they were sharing and jumped off the truck, circling around so he could toss it onto the driver's seat. He grabbed the jacket on the side mirror and slipped it on. There was a black, gray, white, and purple striped patch stitched onto the left shoulder. “But thanks for the concern, Éponine.”

She started at the sound of her chosen name. Another semi roared past them, shaking the truck. “Uh, by the way. I don't really remember your name. What was it again?”

He pulled a comb from a jacket pocket and brushed it through his tidy hair. “Montparnasse.”

“You're not offended by the question?”

“Nah. I know what a blackout is like.” 

Éponine scratched her chin; she needed to shave. She could feel the shadow of hair on her face. Sighing, she made a move to get up, but stopped when a wave of hot pain shot across the skin of her shoulders.

“Ok, Montparnasse. Do you have any aloe vera on you or something?”

“I don't usually carry it with me,” he said with a laugh and a shake of his head. "We could, like, head to Walmart or something.”

“That'd be great.”

She jumped off the backseat with a grimace, her thighs burned red under her thin leggings, and got into the passenger seat. Montparnasse turned on some indie bullshit as they went down the road, humming along and tapping his black fingernails against the wheel to the beat. The A/C washed over her, and she managed to relax, a little bit.

“There's some painkillers in the glovebox, if you want. For the hangover,” he said.

“Oh, thank god.” She got them out and took a couple. Her head slowed to a minimum of swirling. “Thank you.” 

They drove back into town and stopped in the parking lot of the first Walmart, which didn't take too long to find. The loud blue letters of “WALMART (save money, live better)” stood out from the rest of the buildings, which were mostly adobe.

Éponine shifted in her seat. “Hey...”

“Yeah?”

“Look, I...” she gulped. “I can't really...go out in public.”

Montparnasse turned off the radio. She rubbed her chin and looked out the window. He opened his mouth to say something, but she continued on, “I can't do it. I haven't shaved since yesterday and I know I have a five o'clock shadow, I can't go out like this, I can't do it -”

“Hey.” He looked at her in a painfully honest way that made her eyes tingle. “Don't panic. It's okay, girl. I'll go in and get you some aloe vera stuff. It's my fault you're so sunburned, anyway.”

She let out a breath of relief. “Thanks...God, you've been so nice to me. Thanks a bunch.”

“Like I said, it's okay. I'm just being decent guy,” he said. “I thought I should mention, I don't really have any cash on me.”

Her stomach dropped. Neither did she.

“So I'll just go in and grab some...be ready to go, you know?” He looked at her, and she nodded. They were teenagers in the same boat.

Montparnasse started to get up, but, as he opened the car door, she mumbled, “You know. What if we just, ditched this town? And went somewhere? Somewhere else. Wouldn't that be cool?”

“I've always wanted to. Except I wouldn't want to miss any A.A. meetings,” he said.

“Yeah...yeah.” She settled back against the seat, hissing at the contact with her sunburn. He shut the door and walked away.

It didn't really matter. She tried to catch some shut-eye before he got back. Gavroche needed her here, anyway.

She wondered if her parents were home yet, and if they knew she had taken their weed.


End file.
